Perry takes on Trump

1of21Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump greets supporters before he speaks at his South Carolina Campaign Kickoff Rally in Bluffton, S.C., Tuesday, July 21, 2015. Donald Trump wouldn't apologize after questioning whether Sen. John McCain -- who spent five years as a prisoner during the Vietnam War -- is a war hero. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton)Photo: Stephen B. Morton, FRE / Associated Press

2of21Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks at his South Carolina Campaign Kickoff Rally in Bluffton, S.C., Tuesday, July 21, 2015. Donald Trump wouldn't apologize after questioning whether Sen. John McCain -- who spent five years as a prisoner during the Vietnam War -- is a war hero. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton)Photo: Stephen B. Morton, FRE / Associated Press

3of21Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks at his South Carolina Campaign Kickoff Rally in Bluffton, S.C., Tuesday, July 21, 2015. Donald Trump wouldn't apologize after questioning whether Sen. John McCain -- who spent five years as a prisoner during the Vietnam War -- is a war hero. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton)Photo: Stephen B. Morton, FRE / Associated Press

7of21Donald Trump, a Republican presidential hopeful, greets supporters after a campaign rally in Laconia, N.H., July 16, 2015. Trumpâs surge in the polls has followed the classic pattern of a media-driven surge. Now it will most likely follow the classic pattern of a party-backed decline. (Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist/The New York Times)Photo: IAN THOMAS JANSEN-LONNQUIST, STR / New York Times

9of21FILE - In this May 16, 2015, file photo, Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry speaks in Des Moines, Iowa. Unlike during his presidential bid four years ago, the 2015 version of Perry is decidedly less cowboy, going for country humble instead of country strong. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)Photo: Charlie Neibergall, STF / Associated Press

10of21WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 02: Former Texas Governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry addresses the National Press Club Luncheon July 2, 2015 in Washington, DC. Perry began his speech about how African-Americans should support him and the GOP by recounting the racially-motivated 1916 lynching of Jesse Washington in Waco, Texas, and how far Texas and the nation had come since that time. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)Photo: Chip Somodevilla, Staff / Getty Images

11of21Republican presidential candidate, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry speaks during the National Right to Life convention, Friday, July 10, 2015, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Jonathan Bachman)Photo: Jonathan Bachman, FRE / Associated Press

12of21Former Texas Governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry listens to his introduction before addressing the National Press Club Luncheon July 2, 2015 in Washington, DC. Perry began his speech about how African-Americans should support him and the GOP by recounting the racially-motivated 1916 lynching of Jesse Washington in Waco, Texas, and how far Texas and the nation had come since that time. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)Photo: Chip Somodevilla, Staff / Getty Images

15of21DALLAS, TEXAS- JUNE 4: Former Texas Governor Rick Perry smiles after announcing that he will run for president in 2016 on June 4, 2015 in Dallas, Texas. Rick Perry is the tenth Republican to join the race for president in 2016, and also ran for the presidency in 2012. (Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)Photo: Ron Jenkins, Stringer / Getty Images

16of21DALLAS, TX - JUNE 04: Former Texas Governor Rick Perry takes a look around the stage area before announcing that he will run for president in 2016 June 4, 2015 in Dallas, Texas. Rick Perry is the tenth Republican to join the race for president in 2016, and also ran for the presidency in 2012. (Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)Photo: Ron Jenkins, Stringer / Getty Images

17of21DALLAS, TX - JUNE 04: Supporters of former Texas Governor Rick Perry wait for his arrival on June 4, 2015 in Dallas, Texas. Perry is expected to announce that he will run for president in 2016 June 4, 2015 in Dallas, Texas. Rick Perry is the tenth Republican to join the race for president in 2016, and also ran for the presidency in 2012. (Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)Photo: Ron Jenkins, Stringer / Getty Images

18of21Former Texas Governor Rick Perry stops to pet retired U.S. Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell's service dog Rigby after he announces his candidacy for President of the United States at the Million Air hanger at the Addison airport near Dallas on June 4,, 2015.Photo: Tom Reel / San Antonio Express-News

19of21Former Texas Governor Rick Perry announces his candidacy for President of the United States at the Million Air hanger at the Addison airport near Dallas on June 4,, 2015. Marcus Lattrell and his service dog Rigby stand behind the Governor.Photo: Tom Reel / San Antonio Express-News

20of21Supporters cheer as former Texas Governor Rick Perry announces his candidacy for President of the United States at the Million Air hanger at the Addison airport near Dallas on June 4,, 2015.Photo: Tom Reel / San Antonio Express-News

21of21Former Texas Governor Rick Perry announces his candidacy for President of the United States at the Million Air hanger at the Addison airport near Dallas on June 4,, 2015. At right is Kaya Kyle, widow of Chris Kyle, whose military career was chronicled in American Sniper.Photo: Tom Reel, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

WASHINGTON — With Donald Trump under fire, former Gov. Rick Perry sat for an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity Monday night via satellite hookup, appearing by himself in the corner of a room beside a lamp, a set of books and a globe.

“I’m going to stand up to him, just like I would stand up to Vladimir Putin,” Perry said, explaining his escalating war of words with the outlandish business mogul, who had attacked Perry’s record of policing the southern border in Texas.

Perry, Hannity noted, seemed more willing than any of his GOP rivals to take on Trump, who has surged to the top of the Republican presidential primary polls.

“There seems to be bad blood here growing,” he said.

“Well, I don’t know about bad blood,” Perry replied, “but when he attacks me and the bullet goes through me and hits the Texas Rangers … you better believe I’m going to stand up.”

The clip of Perry alone in a corner seemed an apt visual for a candidate who has been pushing back the hardest against the Trump phenomenon, even before the reality TV star’s incendiary remarks belittling the war record of U.S. Sen. John McCain, a Vietnam War POW.

“I have a message for my fellow Republicans and the independents who will be voting in the primary process,” Perry said last week, before Trump scrambled the GOP contest with his shot at McCain. “What Mr. Trump is offering is not conservatism, it is Trump-ism — a toxic mix of demagoguery and nonsense.”

The contrast has been particularly stark with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who courted the Manhattan tycoon in his Trump Tower office last week. Since then, Cruz has steadfastly declined to join the GOP scrum over Trump’s controversial remarks questioning McCain’s war heroism.

“I recognize that folks in the press love to see Republican-on-Republican violence, so you want me to say something bad about Donald Trump or bad about John McCain or bad about anyone else,” Cruz told reporters in Iowa. “I’m not going to do it. John McCain is a friend of mine. I respect and admire him and he’s an American hero. And Donald Trump is a friend of mine.”

Analysts say both Texans have been hurt by Trump, who has co-opted both of their messages on border security and immigration. He once even publicly questioned Cruz’s Canadian birth.

But the new conflagration also presents opportunities.

For Cruz, a Trump implosion — still by no means certain — would be a chance to reclaim the anti-Washington part of the GOP base that has rallied around Trump’s no-holds-barred tactics.

“It’s a bet that at some point, Trump disappears,” Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson said, explaining Cruz’s reluctance to go after Trump.

Cruz said in New York last week that he intends to win the GOP nomination, which means cutting into all of his rivals’ support. But it is Trump, analysts say, who has done the most damage to Cruz, particularly in Iowa.

It was at Saturday’s Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa , where Trump made the remarks that rocked the Republican establishment and set off a media feeding frenzy.

“He’s not a war hero,” Trump said of McCain. “He’s a war hero because he was captured. … I like people that weren’t captured.”

The resulting furor eclipsed almost all of the news coverage of the Family Leader event, an influential meeting of evangelicals which Cruz arguably dominated with five standing ovations.

But that is hardly the narrative that emerged from Iowa, where Trump dominated the headlines.

“He would walk Trump off the stage with an arm around his shoulder,” Jillson said of Cruz. “Cruz’s calling card has been, ‘I’m the most energetic conservative available to you,’ and Trump says, ‘Not really.’”

Perry’s calculation has been different. Struggling in the polls and languishing in the money race, Perry has had more reason to directly engage with Trump, now a media sensation in the GOP contest.

The billionaire’s attacks on Perry have allowed the former governor to highlight his decision to send National Guard troops to the border, ostensibly to pick up the slack left by the Obama administration.

“The border security piece is a strength for Perry, and it’s also very unique,” Texas GOP strategist Matt MacKowiak said. And by standing up for McCain, a decorated war veteran, Perry has been offered a chance to underscore his own military service in a state with a large community of veterans.

“Frankly,” Perry wrote in a National Review article on Monday, “we should expect no better from a man (Trump) who couldn’t be bothered to answer the call to serve his nation when it needed him most.”

For Perry, like Cruz, attacking Trump runs the risk of alienating a critical part of the GOP’s activist base. But the controversy has also afforded him the moral high ground in the debate.

“Perry can do well distinguishing himself as willing to go after the bully,” MacKowiak said.

What remains to be seen is how Trump fares once the dust has settled from his weekend in Iowa. He has shown no signs of backing down and went further Tuesday by going to South Carolina and calling one of the state’s U.S. senators, presidential candidate Lindsey Graham, a “stiff” and an “idiot.”

Some Republican leaders believe, hopefully perhaps, that Trump has finally crossed a line of propriety and will soon fade in the polls. Others have yet to be convinced.

“The laws of political gravity don’t appear to apply to Trump,” MacKowiak said. “It’s the fact that he’s an anti-politician, and that’s what people like about him.”

Unlike traditional politicians, MacKowiak added, Trump can afford to be outrageous. It gets him attention — at the expense of everybody else — and pushes up his poll numbers.

“There’s an incentive for him to be outrageous,” he said.

But it was Perry, more than anyone else, who was able to garner some of Trump’s space in the spotlight.

Asked what he thought of Trump’s performance, Perry snapped back that he is “unfit to be commander-in-chief,” and that he “should immediately withdraw from the race for president.”